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News

At its meeting on Monday, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) followed a staff recommendation to amend IFRS 4 'Insurance Contracts' to address the consequences of different effective dates of IFRS 9 'Financial Instruments' and the new insurance contracts standard expected to be published in 2016.

The amendments would permit an entity to exclude from profit or loss and recognise in other comprehensive income the difference between the amounts that would be recognised in profit or loss in accordance with IFRS 9 and the amounts recognised in profit or loss in accordance with IAS 39Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement provided that the entity issues contracts accounted for under IFRS 4, applies IFRS 9 in conjunction with IFRS 4, and classifies financial assets as fair value through profit or loss in accordance with IFRS 9 when those assets were previously classified at amortised cost or as available-for-sale in accordance with IAS 39.

The IASB intends to discuss the scope of the amendments to IFRS 4 and whether the effective date of IFRS 9 should be deferred for the insurance industry during its September meeting. Please click for our Deloitte observer notes for details of the IASB's discussion.

The IFRS Advisory Council met in London on 9–10 June 2015. Topics discussed at the meeting included the 2015 agenda consultation, the review of the structure and effectiveness of the IFRS Foundation, and an overview of the IFRS Foundation’s strategy for 2015–2017. The council also considered the latest developments related to the IFRS adoption experience in Japan, profiles of IFRS filing requirements by jurisdiction, and items on the IASB’s technical agenda related to the research program and leases.

2015 agenda consultation — Council members provided feedback concerning the method of presentation in the request for views.

Review of the structure and effectiveness of the IFRS Foundation — The council made suggestions regarding the draft consultation document.

2015–2017 IFRS Foundation strategy — The staff gave an overview presentation to the council.

IFRS adoption in Japan — The council noted the increasing number of companies adopting IFRSs in Japan because of the perceived benefits of doing so and discussed the implementation of the Japanese corporate governance code.

Profiles of IFRS filing requirements by jurisdiction — The council requested that the staff consider whether there are additional strategic uses for the profiles.

Research program — The council supported this program and provided several considerations. In addition, the council indicated that it supports changing rate regulation from a research project to a standards-level project.

Leases — The council proposed steps to be taken after the issuance of the leases standard. Specifically, the council suggested that (1) there is no need to form a transition resource group; (2) educational meetings with national standard setters, investors, and regulators should be held; (3) the effects-analysis document should explain the differences between IFRSs and U.S. GAAP; and (4) the IASB should monitor implementation issues.

The next meeting of the IFRS Ad­vi­sory Council is sched­uled for 2–3 November 2015, in London. The full report on the council’s June meeting is avail­able on the IASB's website.

When the United Kingdom replaced local GAAP with a new standard based on the IFRS for SMEs in 2013, the Financial Reporting Standard for Smaller Entities (FRSSE) was retained. Today, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has issued a suite of changes that update and, in many cases simplify, UK and Ireland accounting standards and include new requirements for micro-entities and small entities and the withdrawal of the FRSSE. The changes are largely in response to the implementation of the new EU Accounting Directive.

The changes consist of:

a new standard, FRS 105 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable to the Micro-entities Regime;

a new Section 1A Small Entities of FRS 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland; and

As announced when publishing its consultation document on the proposed new Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has requested the IASB to extend the comment period related to the Exposure Draft (ED) by two months.

EFRAG cites the following reasons:

The Conceptual Framework project is very important and will have a profound and overarching effect on the outcomes of future standard-setting processes. It is essential that the IASB's constituents have sufficient time to study the proposals in the ED.

The IASB argued that a 150-day comment period would suffice as constituents would already be familiar with the content of the ED as it is based on the July 2013 Discussion Paper. However, EFRAG argues that there have been significant changes since then.

In EFRAG’s view, the ED does not provide sufficient principle based guidance on important issues such as the selection of measurement bases and what should be reported in OCI. EFRAG expects that constituents might want to develop and provide suggestions on how to deal with these issues, which would take additional time.

In some jurisdictions, the period available for debating the ED would be shortened by the time it takes to translate the proposals.

The time available could also be reduced by the need to react to other documents issued by the IFRS Foundation for comment (the forthcoming Agenda Consultation and the IFRS Foundation Review on structure and effectiveness).

Please click for additional information and access to the letter sent to the IASB in the press release on the EFRAG website. More information on EFRAG's consultation document on the Conceptual Framework ED is available here.

The European Financial Reporting Group (EFRAG) has issued a 'Short Discussion Series' paper that discusses the usefulness of the statement of cash flows for financial institutions and possible alternatives.

The EFRAG's 'Short Discussion Series' are designed to address topical and problematic issues with the aim of stimulating debate among European constituents and of helping the IASB to address cross-cutting dilemmas in financial reporting.

In the paper, the EFRAG discusses the following topics:

Summary of requirements and intended benefits of IAS 7.

Requirements in IAS 7 specifically relevant to financial institutions, including views on the usefulness to financial institutions.

The IFRS Foundation, along with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), will be hosting a IFRS conference for financial institutions in London on 15 September 2015 to discuss key standards and current IASB projects.

Speakers at the conference in include Hans Hoogervorst, Chairman of the IASB, other IASB members, and other IFRS experts.

The programme for the conference features a panel discussion and several presentations:

Financial Institutions IFRS Conference, London, 15 September 2015

Welcome

Keynote address

Panel discussion: Transparency and prudential requirements; the impact of the expected loss model

On 2 July 2015, the Accounting Standards Committee of Germany (ASCG) honored its former long-standing secretary general and president, Dr. h.c. Liesel Knorr, with a festive ceremony with guests from Germany and abroad. Part of the event was a panel discussion "Quo vadis international accounting?".

The panelists - Liesel Knorr herself, IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst, Prof. Dr. Joachim Gassen of Humboldt University in Berlin, former Vice-Chairman of the IFRS Advisory Council Dr. Christoph Hütten, and Heiner Kompenhans (Assurance leader of Deloitte Germany) - discussed adoption of IFRSs around the world, non-GAAP measures, the question of how many standard-setters we need, the agenda consultation, fair value measurement, judgement in accounting, the role of academia in accounting, and other topics.

The recording of the panel discussion is available as "DRSC-Festveranstaltung zur Verabschiedung von Liesel Knorr - Teil 2" on this ASCG page. The panel discussion starts at about 6 minutes 45 seconds and is (with exception of four minutes) in English.

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